


Keep Her Soaring

by Deannie



Series: Women on the Border [11]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Depression, F/M, Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8050939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: Zoe isn't dealing. The 'Verse don't care.





	Keep Her Soaring

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: depression. Part of my Women on the Border series.

The bunk used to be smaller.

The first time she let him share her bunk it seemed small, anyway. All arms and legs and trying to stay on. And even then, he’d been gentle.

Hell, sometimes he was damn near the only gentle thing in her life. War had made her think she was past romance and marriage and then, there he was. Waiting for her to figure out the need she didn’t know she had.

They’d wedge themselves in there, of a night. Or use it for better things more often. Now it’s huge. Huge as space and just as empty. Cold too, but she reckons that’s the atmo. Kaylee’s been mucking around the engine again, hunting for more of that efficiency she’s so keen on.

“Efficiency, yeah,” Wash had said in the beginning, when there was something wrong about him she just couldn’t shake. Something… brash. Open. Free in a way she never was before him and never would be again, now. “Efficiency is something, but it’s all  fèiwù if she don’t soar when she flies.

All crap.

“Zoe?” 

That’d be Inara. Quiet and gentle and never nothing but—except when she’s hard as steel.  She’ll move off, though. After a time.

“There’s food... if you want it.”

No. 

No. Bunk’s too big, but out there is even bigger. Can’t breathe out there. Can’t…

_ Wǒ xiǎng nǐ, lover. I miss you so much. _

“I’ll be here waiting on you,” Wash’d say. Him and his dinosaurs. Except on those jobs where he was the one came running to the rescue. Never loved him more than when he swooped in on this old ship, buzzing those that meant them ill. Protecting his own, he’d tell her. Yeah, she never loved him more. 

Never loved him less, either.

“Zoe! You said you hated him!”

She’d looked at Mal, then back at the man who’d got down on his knee like some knight from Earth-That-Was and asked her to marry him.

“I did, sir,” she replied, the smile sneaking onto her lips whether she wanted it or no. “Got over it.”

She’ll never get over this.

“Just crossed the border into Juni’s territory,” Mal said over the speakers. “Y’all best look lively, now. Be on the ground soon.”

He’d need her then. The Captain. He wouldn’t beg or cajole or even fight, though. Wasn’t like that with them. Never had been. They had a job. Was gonna make a fair penny, too, so she expected she’d best get moving. Mouths to feed—more to come if Kaylee and Simon kept up the way they were going.

Wash had wanted young’uns, once upon a time. Had hurt something fierce to tell him what had happened, how the war had damaged things what couldn’t be repaired. Things right vital for birthing. His face had fallen and she’d worried then, like a girl newly in love, that he’d see her as less. Weren’t something she’d ever thought about before, but with him it seemed important.

But then he’d kissed her—always gentle—and smiled. “You’re enough,” he said shortly. “You’ll always be enough.”

Wasn’t enough to save him.

Wasn’t enough to save herself.

“Zoe. Jayne. Best get yourselves to the cargo bay.” The Captain wasn’t requesting, and like she did each time, of late, she pondered on ignoring him.

But the bunk was too big. Her heart was too cold.  And Serenity needed to keep soaring as she flew. 

Wash wouldn't want anything less for her. For either of them.

Zoe stood up, leaving the big, big bunk behind. 

"On my way, Captain."

*******  
the end


End file.
